Will You Use Kabbalah As A Potion Of Death Or Elixir Of Life?

Question by a Student: You said that Kabbalah books are similar to medical books. Any medical dictionary or instruction manual accompanying a medicine will list the cases when it is forbidden or even dangerous to take a medicine. Are there similar contraindications in Kabbalah books?

Answer by Dr. Michael Laitman: Definitely! The "Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot" says that the Torah (as well as Kabbalah) can be an "elixir of life" or a "potion of death." It's a known fact that all medicines are poison, but not all poisons are medicine. All medicines were created on the basis of poison; otherwise they would not have a healing effect.

We can be healed or corrected only with the help of a poison, by turning poison into a medicine, or by taking special portions of poison to counter the evil that is inside us. This principle comes from the foundation of nature, following the rule: "The angel of death turns into the angel of life." The same principle is used in medicine.

That is why a snake curled around a vessel with medicine is the symbol for healing used in medicine. This did not come from someone's imagination, but from the foundation of all of nature.

Kabbalah says the same thing: You have to use the books as an instruction manual, a remedy that will work against your egoism, because the Light it contains will correct you and bring you back to the Source. If, however, you don't accept the book as a means to counter your ego, in order to correct yourself, then the studies will blow up your pride, self-confidence, and your demand for a reward in this world and the world to come. Thus, your study will turn into a "potion of death." You will become an even greater egoist and will demand a payment from the Creator.

Baal HaSulam writes in Items 69-71 of the "Introduction to the Book of Zohar" that the source of all the problems in the world lies in none other than people's incorrect use of the Torah and Kabbalah.

Building The Spiritual Group

What can be done in order to waken the situation in the group? We must deal with Rabash's articles about the group. As in all groups of Kabbalists throughout history, we also must deal with the group's set of regulations - to make sure that it is in constant use, implementation, and change. The set of regulations' goal is to allow one to gradually change his form, from a corporeal to a spiritual one. This is the group's role. Therefore the realization of every single one of us is within the group, when I build a form that later on influences me and shapes me. Let us say that I am now a square and need to be a circle, so I build a "round" group, where everyone is as "one man in one heart," in love, in friendship, in Arvut (mutual guarantee). And that needs to influence me and make me as such.

And this is the general form, the general correction that every one of us goes through toward the group, all of us together toward humanity, and thus humanity will also need to receive this form. We must influence humanity, because this group that we are building, which already consists of a few million, is the same group that will be used as a molding template - the stamp that will give shape to everyone who wishes to change. In this manner we must build the group.

Building such a group that will leave its imprint on everyone, is in fact the "true dissemination." Because everyone who enters under this influence, will immediately receive its form, in the way of thought, in the desires, in the approach to life, in the approach to children, to the family, to the Creator, to the Creature, to himself, and in fact to everything. This is how it will be in the future.